Latest update on the efforts to preserve the monarch butterflies, translated from the Spanish Newspaper: La Jornada, Saturday, March 1st. 2014, p.34:
Trilateral group ready to protect
monarch butterfly migration
by Arturo Sánchez Jiménez
As stated by the director of SEMARNAT Juan José Guerra Abud: NGOs, scientists and specialists in Mexico, USA and Canada will be part of a working group that will be established to protect and conserve the migration of the monarch butterfly.
The creation of a trinational group is a consequence of the commitments that the presidents of Mexico, USA and Canada agreed upon during the 2014 North American leaders´ summit that was held in Mexico on February 19th, 2014.
The working team will be formed by WWF, Nature Conservancy and the Group of 100, all NGOs with a presence in the three countries.
Each nation will designate scientists who will join the team. Mexico has proposed Blanca Verónica Juárez Jaimes (Researcher at UNAM); Gloria Tavera (Director of the Monarch Butterfly Reserve) and Carlos Galindo from CONABIO to be part of the team.
The director for Wildlife at SEMARNAT Jorge Maksabedian and the Commissioner of CONANP Luis Fueyo Mac Donald will also be part of the team, as well as representatives of the National Forestry Commission and the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection.
Guerra Abud was in Washington early this week where he met with environmental authorities from the US and Canada with whom he agreed to form this working group.
He said that a meeting with wildlife representatives from the three countries will be held in May in Queretaro. He said that by then, they hope to have concrete proposals that will be presented to a high level group (formed by environmental authorities from Canada, USA and Mexico) during the meeting of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NAFTA) that will be held in Canada in July.
On the other hand, Fueyo Mac Donald said that the monarch butterfly is not going to disappear. This species is widely distributed and will continue to exist on the planet. What is in danger, is that they might no longer arrive to Mexico or that the migratory phenomenon will cease to exist. It is this phenomenon that is registered on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, he pointed out.
Here’s the link to the article in Spanish.
and here’s a link to the SEMARNAT press release
(with photos) covering the first meeting.